Saturday, July 15, 2006

Closers will drive you crazy

For me, Trevor Hoffman's back-to-back blown saves underline how crazy it can be to get the last outs of the game. Armando Benitez had been sucking horribly and blew 4 saves; now he's converted 5 saves in a row, says he's fully healthy and acknowleges he's on the hot seat: "I hear a lot of noise, like Benitez needs to be traded. Now it's time to see what Benitez can do. I'll show everybody."

I still say: Trade him while he has some value.

It doesn't surprise me that the last time that a player got attacked on the field by a fan, it was a closer. (I don't count that strange incident in 2002 in Chicago when a father and son attacked the Royals first base coach). It was 11 years ago that some Cubs fan (big surprise!) named John Murray lost it and ran on to the field to beat up Randy Myers after Myers had given up a homer. What was particularly memorable was how his wife saw it happen while watching on TV. Here's a recap excerpted from The Sporting News --

At home, Lucy Murray zapped her way through the TV channels until she came across the Cubs game. There she saw an odd thing. She saw a fight at the pitcher's mound that wasn't your basic baseball brawl featuring a dozen uniformed brats. This one included a man in street clothes. "I had no idea who it was," Lucy Murray told the Chicago Tribune. "I just saw some guy rolling around on the ground with Randy Myers. I thought for a fleeting second that it night be my husband, because I knew he was at the game, but then I said, `No way.'" Though John Murray has not explained himself, circumstantial evidence suggests he did not like Randy Myers' late-inning relief work that day. Myers gave up a two-run homer. Before the next pitch, Murray left his seat to have a word with Myers, who responded with a forearm shiver and glowerings of menace followed by a schoolyardy roll in the dirt. Police arrested Murray for assault and disorderly conduct. His wife said he'd never done anything like that before: "He's probably embarrassed."